### Please describe the problem.

Had some datalad command failing at either `annex add` or `commit` and tried to reproduce with minimal example but failed, overall:  if config is set to use

```
❯ git config  annex.dbdir
/tmp/cache/git-annex
```

and leading `/tmp/cache` does not exist then in some (e.g. whatever happens during `git pull --ff-only`):

```
❯ git pull --ff-only
...
 create mode 100644 cron-20221228/build-windows.yaml-896-ef8b9610-success/test-datalad (release)/8_Install.txt
 create mode 100644 cron-20221228/build-windows.yaml-896-ef8b9610-success/test-datalad (release)/9_Configure service.txt
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)

❯ git annex version
git-annex version: 10.20221003
```

or could be even more fun:

```
❯ git pull --ff-only
You are not currently on a branch.
Please specify which branch you want to merge with.
See git-pull(1) for details.

    git pull <remote> <branch>

❯ git co master
Previous HEAD position was 3855af5 [tinuous] 20 logs added
Switched to branch 'master'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)
❯ echo $?
1
❯ git co master
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)
error: packet write failed: Broken pipe
error: external filter 'git-annex filter-process' failed
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)
error: external filter 'git-annex filter-process' failed
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)
error: packet write failed: Broken pipe
error: external filter 'git-annex filter-process' failed
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)
error: external filter 'git-annex filter-process' failed
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)
error: packet write failed: Broken pipe
error: external filter 'git-annex filter-process' failed
git-annex: /tmp/cache/git-annex: createDirectory: does not exist (No such file or directory)
error: packet write failed: Broken pipe
error: external filter 'git-annex filter-process' failed
... pressed Ctrl-C
```

and if I precreate leading one -- seems to be feeling ok

```
❯ mkdir /tmp/cache
❯ git co master
Already on 'master'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.
```


NB IIRC: originally came up within reproin-ification effort on rolando and its NFS mounted partition.

[[!meta author=yoh]]
[[!tag projects/repronim]]
